As a Pan-Africanist, one of the things I found most bewildering, bordering on outright disgust, is why, after sixty long years of ostensible independence, the Kenyan nation continues to tolerate the egregious presence of the British Army Training Unit (BATUK) in Kenya.

If the curated heirs of colonialism found it excusable, why do Kenyans tolerate it?

The recent, horrifying revelations of mass rape of women and children, coupled with a litany of human rights violations by the British occupation force, are not merely isolated incidents; they are symptomatic of a deeper, more insidious malady: a persistent colonial hangover that has left Kenya supine before its former oppressor.

Kenyans are screaming and fuming as they watch their plantation supervisors in their stupid suits continue to grovel like well-whipped slaves. “As victims, we are not being heard. We’ve cried enough,” laments one of the traumatized victims. “We’ve seen so many rape victims, so many human rights violations.”

These are ostensibly independent and sovereign Kenyans wailing in their own cities and towns, and yet, the Kenyan government, ostensibly elected to protect its people, appears to offer little more than platitudes and performative outrage.

The baffling question is: why do Kenyan plantation supervisors continue to gaze with such pathetic, dog-like reverence towards a United Kingdom whose star has plummeted into the abyss of economic, political, social, and, most crucially, military decrepitude?

When would Kenyans, and the rest of us in Africa, disabuse our minds of any lingering illusions regarding the might of the British military? Why do we continue to imagine that the current British military is the same formidable force that once carved empires and sundered our societies?

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What goes for the British Army today is a shadow of its former self, a hollowed-out relic struggling with chronic underfunding, dwindling recruitment, and an arsenal of equipment that is, to put it mildly, anachronistic – we are being polite and charitable.

What ails the current British military ar too long to catalog here. They include troop numbers that are at historic lows and fragile morale. Obsolete hardware that is either obsolete or in a perpetual state of disrepair. The recruitment drives are failing to meet targets. The once-vaunted Royal Navy struggles to maintain a credible presence, the Army shrinks year on year, and the Royal Air Force grapples with aging platforms.

Their presence in Kenya, therefore, is not a testament to their strength, but to Kenya’s inexplicable weakness and a leadership seemingly devoid of self-respect.

To our people of Kenya: Wake up from this debilitating colonial stupor! These supplications to former colonial masters are embarrassing.

The cries of your violated sisters and children are echoing across Africa, a searing indictment of your prolonged inertia.

The presence of British military on your soil, far from being a benevolent partnership, is a vestige of an oppressive past, a symbol of continued subjugation. British economic woes are not your burden; their political instability is not your concern.

Your loyalty, your dignity, and your future lie with yourselves, not with a fading European power.

Kenyans, NOW is the time to send the British occupiers home; it is time to reclaim your sovereignty and assert your nationhood with unwavering resolve. This is no longer the time for polite requests, diplomatic niceties, and appeasement.

This is time for decisive action, for self-liberation, Kenyans! Force your government to understand that its primary duty is to protect Kenyan citizens.

Ruto and his co-plantation supervisors should be made to hear Kenyans’ unequivocal battle for the immediate and unconditional expulsion of BATUK from Kenyan soil.

Anything less is a betrayal of your ancestors, your children, and the very essence of your nationhood and sovereignty.

©️ Ọdọ́fin Fẹ̀mi Akọ̀mọ̀‌làfẹ̀ (1st Dan, Ọdọ́fin I of Kasoa)

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